


Black Pearl

by Anonymous



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Other, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-16
Updated: 2008-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Black pearls are rare and precious—sometimes even legends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Pearl

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Linaelyn](http://linaelyn.livejournal.com)'s birthday.

There are black pearls, pink pearls, and white pearls, Jack knows. White pearls are near-common, and pink pearls, while rare, are uninteresting—pale and faded-looking, and Jack is interested in the vivid, the daring, the extraordinary.

Even black pearls are a dull silver, really—grey, not black, and while they're a refreshing change from the usual stream of shiny pieces that his master deals in, he can't help but long for something a deep, true black. He knows he'll likely never find it, but that doesn't mean he'll ever stop looking, does it?

What's life without a bit of hopeless, romantic questing, anyway?

He works in the back of the shop—not quietly, that's too much to ask of Mrs Finch's boy, but obediently, and he's a quick study, don't have to tell him sumfing more'n once, not to say ye should get a big head, Jack! He learns how to solder metals together and make them twist and blend in tortured shapes. He has a knack for separating gold from silver, the boy does, and an eye for flawed gems that just need a bit of polishing and recutting to sparkle.

It's a month before Christmasfeast and Frannie has a cold. She looks 'ruddy awful,' Master O'Shaughnessy pronounced when she came in and sneezed before even closing the door. 'Get home, gal, dun't make the quality sick!'

Frannie scarpered, and Jack's a trifle envious despite her walk past the docks in the raw wind. He wishes he were home, even though home's not much, 'stead of waiting on fat old men in curly wigs buying diamond chips for their wives and gaudier jewels for their mistresses. He doesn't mind his work in the back of the shop, where he gets to look at pretty things, but O'Shaughnessy sent him up front to do what Frannie, with her deep-cut bodices and shiny silver tooth, usually does. He flutters his lashes like his namesake's wings.

This bloke, though—'s going to be interesting, selling him anything. Not nearly as old as most of the gents who come through here, and he 's more ragged, too. O'Shaughnessy would have thrown him out if he hadn't dropped two gold coins on the countertop before he even opened his mouth. Any fool could have told that those were real gold, even if Jack's never seen their like before—the surface is scratched and dented, and the design's not Spanish, not French, and certainly not English.

'Well, sir,' O'Shaughnessy said, rubbing his hands together, 'what would ye like to take a gander at?'

'Pearls,' the fellow said. 'Me Jenny has a fondness for them.'

'Pearls, ye say? Pearls it is—hey, Jack, show the gentleman the pearl brooch ye finished just yesterday.' Jack slides off his stool and unlocks the cabinet behind the till.

The brooch is not particularly impressive, for Jack's work, but it's nothing to scoff at as the man is doing. 'No,' he says, 'Black pearls.' Jack sticks out his chin and puts the brooch back. 'Not meanin' any offense,' the man adds, and Jack glances up at him, startled. There's a brief flash of tooth as the man smiles, but it vanishes when O'Shaughnessy speaks again.

'Black pearls—'

'Are rare, I know.'

'We've the earbobs,' Jack contributes, taking a sudden liking to the fellow, even if he does have worn cuffs and dirty nails. O'Shaughnessy gives him a dirty look, but nods.

'Aye, so we have.' Jack doesn't wait for permission before pulling out the tiny box with the twin earbobs in it. The pearls have a dull grey sheen, like the Thames in summer at night, and Jack will be sorry to see them go. But they're not really black, and he won't regret their loss for long; he never does.

'Ah,' the fellow says. 'Black pearls.'

'Yessir,' Jack says.

'Do y'know the legend of the black pearl?' he asks, leaning over toward Jack a bit. Jack blinks. 'I see not. I think ye will, soon enough, boy.'

O'Shaughnessy watches them for a moment, eyes narrowed, but another customer comes in, and he hurries off to pander some more.

'Mother's love,' the fellow says, 'but ye've the look of a boy who will meet the legend of the black pearl.'

'Sir?' Jack says. He's not unused to the crazed; the pox has driven men mad in his district afore this, but he's never seen madness like this.

'Don't be afeared, boy,' he says. 'There's nothin' to fear. The black pearl is a woman. The most beauteous woman in all the seven seas, for all that she's forced to live as a ship. There're witches in the Caribe, y'know, and the Pearl sinned against one of 'em, maybe, or laughed at her, and the witch cursed her. No one knows just how it happened, but it did, and now the Pearl sails under the command of those who would keep her a ship. When she finds the man who loves her as she should be loved, 'twill not matter if she's a ship or a woman, for they'll be together in all the warmth of the sun and do whatever they wish to do for all and ever.'

He grins a little and squints at Jack. 'Dunno that I'd wish it for meself,' he says, 'but ye've the look of a boy who dreams of black pearls.'

Jack grins back. 'Yessir,' he admits, and glances over to where O'Shaughnessy is showing off a necklace of flawed emeralds. 'Really black pearls, not this kind of grey sort.'

'Aye,' the man says. 'My Jenny's no wish for the sea, says she likes the black ones for they're the colour of fog when I sail back, but that's neither here nor there. My coins --' and he jerks his head to where they lie on the countertop.

'They'll be enough,' Jack says. 'Fact, I'll get some silver so you don't lose all your money just on these—'

'No need, son. It's the merchants in Virgina who're paying, so don't concern yourself on that account.' He smirks a bit and picks up the box with the earbobs. 'I'll wish ye good day.'

'G'day, sir,' Jack says, and ducks round to open the door. The fellow's hand on his shoulder stops him before he can let in the blast of chill air, and he swallows a bit.

'Black pearls,' the man says soft, 'are rare and precious, and ye're one of the few who dream of them dark as sin. I'd not forget that, were I daft enough to know it.' He opens the door himself, while Jack's staring up at him, half in fear, half in astonishment, and the cold wind that hits him full in the face startles him alert again. The man ducks out, and Jack's left in a shop full of pretty things that don't belong to him.

  
  



End file.
